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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dialect and Masculinity:
While riding the bus to school as a young boy, Little Dog becomes an enticing figure for burgeoning bullies. As a small, non-White child who does not conform to traditional American notions of masculinity, Little Dog is sadly a prime target for the homophobic violence of his peers. In the following excerpt from Part 1, Vuong utilizes metaphor and dialect to characterize this brutal scene:
“Don’t you ever say nothin’? Don’t you speak English?” He grabbed my shoulder and spun me to face him. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers. The boys crowded around me, sensing entertainment. I could smell their fresh-laundered clothes, the lavender and lilac in the softeners.
Little Dog compares the aggressive, toxic way his bullies address him to a "dialect," one they've learned by listening to their fathers. This "dialect" is not another language in the strictest sense; rather, it is a way of demanding respect and deference from those deemed "weaker": women, queer people, or children. In the same way Little Dog "inherits" the wartime trauma of his mother, aunt, and grandmother, so do his bullies inherit the trauma of rigid masculine norms, forced upon them by fathers who undoubtedly inherited the same.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Rot of the Harvest:
In Part 1, Little Dog reflects on his grandmother's sexual trauma. During the American invasion of Vietnam, Lan did what she needed to in order to survive and take care of Mai and Rose—namely, sex work. In the following passage, a modern-day Lan recalls this period in her life with shame, referencing a metaphor Lan's mother would use to humiliate her daughter:
“I never asked to be a whore,” [Lan] sobbed. “A girl who leaves her husband is the rot of a harvest,” she repeated the proverb her mother told her. “A girl who leaves . . .” She rocked from side to side, eyes shut, face lifted toward the ceiling, like she was seventeen again.
Lan quotes her mother in the above metaphor: "a girl who leaves her husband is the rot of a harvest." Given the fact that Lan's family were farmers, this metaphor takes on added contextual significance. Lan's mother compares her daughter's life choices and profession to the worst, most regressive thing she can think of.
Lan carries the dual traumas of maternal disapproval and difficult sex work, even in her old age. No matter how old Little Dog's grandmother becomes, a single memory makes her 17 again, mired in shame.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Glass Walls:
In the following instance of metaphor from Part 1, Little Dog considers the animosity he feels from school-bus bullies:
“Speak English,” said the boy with a yellow bowl cut, his jowls flushed and rippling.
The cruelest walls are made of glass, Ma. I had the urge to break through the pane and leap out the window.
Later, Rose responds to Little Dog's mistreatment at the hands of his bullies (and his reaction to that mistreatment):
“What kind of boy would let them do that?” Smoke leaked from the corners of your mouth. “You did nothing.” You shrugged. “Just let them.”
I thought of the window again, how everything seemed like a window, even the air between us.
Little Dog compares certain relationships in his life to "glass walls," conceding that the "cruelest walls" are those that allow you to see but not reach that which you desire. In Little Dog's analogy, this "something on the other side" differs: in the first excerpt above, windows allow him to see outside the bus but not escape his tormentors. Similarly, in the second excerpt, Rose's chiding over this bullying incident represents one facet of the "glass wall" between Little Dog and his mother. He can so clearly understand her and longs to be understood in turn. Despite this yearning, though, mother and son fail to communicate, with Rose simply reiterating the bullies' insults in a different form.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Countries:
In the following excerpt, Little Dog reflects on the migratory patterns of monarch butterflies, utilizing both metaphor and allegory to craft an image of generational trauma:
The monarchs that fly south will not make it back north. Each departure, then, is final. Only their children return; only the future revisits the past. What is a country but a borderless sentence, a life? [....] What is a country but a life sentence?
Little Dog compares a country to a prison, asking, "what is a country but a life sentence?" In this passage, the monarchs are an allegory for Little Dog's older family members, Rose, Mai, and Lan. They have left their home country but still carry their past (and PTSD) with them, imprisoned by a "borderless sentence."
Little Dog further observes that in monarch butterfly populations, the length of the adult life cycle is such that the butterflies who fly south never return north. Instead, the children of the original migrators are burdened with the return journey and all it entails. Following the logic of this allegory, Rose, Mai, and Lan avoid "returning" to the past—both physically and via remembrance—because of the pain that dwells there. It is Little Dog, the next generation, who must return to the site of his elder family members' trauma.
Related Themes:
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Sorry:
In the following example of metaphor from Part 2, Little Dog discusses the intricate racial politics at play in his mother's nail salon:
In the nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologizes, but insists, reminds: I'm here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that the client feels right, superior, and charitable.
Rose often apologizes to her salon patrons without actually being in the wrong, using the word "sorry" to lower herself and placate those who hold themselves superior. Little Dog metaphorically presents the word "sorry" in this context as a form of currency, which Rose uses to buy favor from her clientele.
Additionally, Little Dog implies with this passage that Rose's White clientele expect inferiority from her. In fact, Rose's subservience soothes her clients, comforting an ingrained sense of racial hierarchy they may not even acknowledge. Such nuanced racial politics are often unobservable to ignorant White eyes. Little Dog, on the other hand, finds himself keenly aware of his mother's predicament. Rose is caught up in the middle of it all but has a son to feed and an aging mother to care for—so, like Lan, who took up sex work during the war, Rose does what she needs to do to survive.
Related Themes:
